So how hard are the wing assassination missions?

[Stealthie]

I just made some changes to my Corvettes, did an Assassination mission in one as a field-test and, honestly, I didn't even notice that it was supposed to be a wing-mission until I came to hand it in.

Not completely sure but I get the feeling that the ships in wing-assassination missions get the same magical shield/hull buffs that ships in CZs get.

I guess it's plausible that we're going to encounter high-ranking ships with engineered hulls/shields but I find it a bit irritating that it's always ships in CZs and it's always all of them, regardless of rank, whereas you never encounter one of these super-ships in a RES or at a CNB etc.

I'd rather that all ships were progressively more likely to have big hulls/shields depending on their rank, regardless of where you encounter them.

 

[Aashenfox]

I think the wing assassination NPCs are the highest engineered NPCs in the game. More than pirate instances, more than CZs. I would also like to see more distribution of engineering based on supposed rank.

 

[babelfisch]

I tried an elite wing assassination in my semi engineered Mamba and had to run. I am not very good at combat though.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Wing Assassinations should be doable in an engineered Imperial Cutter plus fighter. However, the Federal Corvette is my favorite wing assassination ship.

I focus on the mission target first, and depending on time & stacking of multiple wing missions, I takeout the escorts.

I do the reverse - kill all their friends while they watch and take the mark out last. Since their SCB’s have SCB’s the primary target can actually take a minute to crack, so I’d rather spend it taking fire from one ship instead of 5.

 

[Aashenfox]

I do the reverse - kill all their friends while they watch and take the mark out last. Since their SCB’s have SCB’s the primary target can actually take a minute to crack, so I’d rather spend it taking fire from one ship instead of 5.

You're still taking about the old ones where the mark is a Corvette, right? Because the new ones, it is definitely not optimal to leave an fdl with 5 hardpoints firing at you while you take out the two vultures which have phasing (and therefore a damage DEbuff). The fdl has more hardpoints than both vultures put together, and while 4 large (both vultures together) is better than 4 medium and a huge (the FDL), as mentioned, the vulture have fairly weak lasers, while the FDL has more effective weapons. On top of that, the shields on the vultures are prismatic (FDLs are A rated) while the FDL has size 4 cells which are ineffective even if you don't have feedback, the vulture still seem to take just as long to beat down.

I 'always' take out the FDL first. Not least of all because if you DO get overwhelmed (not likely on a vette I admit, but as mentioned, I do these in a medium) at least I've already killed the mark (probably). Naturally the kill order on such closely matched ships for effective health is never going to be a huge decider (especially if you use a big ship), but for the encounter I'm talking about, I'd definitely suggest people take out the mark first.

 

[rekurzion]

Ah... now I realise...you're talking about regular Pirate Assassinations. Sorry man, we're talking about WING assassinations...

Yeh, pirate assassinations...? Pfff. I was taking them out a year ago in a racing ship with no hull damage. Not trying to brag, just highlighting the enormous difference...You can see in this video below as well, the exact mechanic you describe. Until he connects with a PA he doesn't fire his other weapons. This obviously helps a lot in that instance.

However in Wing assassinations, the target is now always a Fer de Lance, and the wing always two or three vultures, and their engineering is much, much higher than before. Part of the reason I challenge you on the 80% hull thing is because they use phasing. It would be a very special run to avoid those two vultures hitscan phasing weapons for long enough in an asp scout to clear the instance and still be at 80%...So here're a couple of other videos...the first is the lightweight courier nearly running out of ammo, but getting the job done (280mj shield, lightweight multicannons and lightweight railgun, ZERO dps, lol), and the second video is just to show the OLD composition of wing assassinations, I do an easy clear in my vette...

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6qrKxYrtI0


And the old style assassinations (miss these.... )

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaOAtWOMsfE

in my last post i was specifically talking about the corvette assassination mission. but in my first post i was specifically talking about wing assassination missions.

as long as you can travel faster than 320 m/s you can separate the FDL from the vultures and fight one on one. from there, it is possible to engage the FDL in a way where they do not fire their chaff if it is stocked. and if you interdict the target then you can have AI backup if desired.

the 80% is hard, which is why i mentioned it would have to be a near perfect run and the FDL would have to be loaded a certain way (i've met FDL's with 4 PDs that make it difficult to take out their weapons with missiles). in an asp scout, which is basically a small ship in a medium frame, you are not going to last long against 4 engineered ships. but the objective is only one target so why waste the time?

i used to bring my biggest ship and tank all of the baddies until i realized how deficient the AI was.

 

[Aashenfox]

in my last post i was specifically talking about the corvette assassination mission. but in my first post i was specifically talking about wing assassination missions.

as long as you can travel faster than 320 m/s you can separate the FDL from the vultures and fight one on one. from there, it is possible to engage the FDL in a way where they do not fire their chaff if it is stocked. and if you interdict the target then you can have AI backup if desired.

the 80% is hard, which is why i mentioned it would have to be a near perfect run and the FDL would have to be loaded a certain way (i've met FDL's with 4 PDs that make it difficult to take out their weapons with missiles). in an asp scout, which is basically a small ship in a medium frame, you are not going to last long against 4 engineered ships. but the objective is only one target so why waste the time?

i used to bring my biggest ship and tank all of the baddies until i realized how deficient the AI was.

I see what you mean, but that kind of play is firstly extremely technical to execute, and probably not fun for many people. I'd still like you see you execute a perfect run, it'd be a popular vid, you should make it, solo wing assassination in asp scout, as long as you complete the mission, the circumstances under which you do it won't matter.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

You're still taking about the old ones where the mark is a Corvette, right? Because the new ones, it is definitely not optimal to leave an fdl with 5 hardpoints firing at you while you take out the two vultures which have phasing (and therefore a damage DEbuff). The fdl has more hardpoints than both vultures put together, and while 4 large (both vultures together) is better than 4 medium and a huge (the FDL), as mentioned, the vulture have fairly weak lasers, while the FDL has more effective weapons. On top of that, the shields on the vultures are prismatic (FDLs are A rated) while the FDL has size 4 cells which are ineffective even if you don't have feedback, the vulture still seem to take just as long to beat down.

I 'always' take out the FDL first. Not least of all because if you DO get overwhelmed (not likely on a vette I admit, but as mentioned, I do these in a medium) at least I've already killed the mark (probably). Naturally the kill order on such closely matched ships for effective health is never going to be a huge decider (especially if you use a big ship), but for the encounter I'm talking about, I'd definitely suggest people take out the mark first.

I’ve only seen a few of these with FdL/Vulture combos, and I rarely take my Corvette out on these. Last one of these I saw I ran in my Gunship, and popped both Vultures first - two volleys of 5 PA’s and a jolt of thermal vent lasers. The FdL barely had time to get into range before the 2nd Vulture was spare parts. But it did manage to SCB after every plasma volley, though may have died of heat, because I swear I didn’t hit it that hard!

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

How do you wing up with people? This game doesn't make it easy. I've been asking this for ages.

 

[Schmack]

Easy

Hull ram target till just before 50% or so. They wont engage. Then take out drives with seekers. Then you can attack him at your leisure. Lure wing away, turn back and make strafing runs on target.

 

[Frank]

How do you wing up with people? This game doesn't make it easy. I've been asking this for ages.

Do you mean how do the mechanics of winging up with people in your friend's list or how to find friend with which to wing up?

If it's the latter then you can use Inara to find player factions

INARA

The community site for Elite: Dangerous, Starfield, Kingdom Come: Deliverance with the game databases, information, gaming news and other handy content...

inara.cz

The in-game mechanic is for you to use the squadrons tab in your comms window

Alternatively you could always come over to Fighter Club on Wednesday and ask for a wing-up. It's a bit quiet at the moment seeing as summer's here, but if the worst comes to the worst then there's always me you could wing up with <apologetic grin>

details can be found at

Newcomer / Intro - Fighter Club, the fighting club for every skill level

A choice. I'm happy with anyplace apart from Jameson Memorial. Charlie cannae get in there. If you don't have any preference yourself, Then Back Enterprise might be a good place to go. We might even be able to pick a mission from there

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Krash]

No, it's not your fault, the current wing assassinations are an extreme challenge in anything with less than 4000hp (shield and hull combined). While that is easily achievable with a chieftain and I can clear a wing assassination in my chieftain (with 700mj biweave and 4200 hull), it requires not only a bulletproof build, but excellent multiple contact dogfighting technique, and I don't enjoy doing it, one mistake would mean going back for repairs and having to start again, which is why I take the Krait these days, it simply has a much higher equipment budget than a chieftain, far bigger distributor, larger hardpoints and much better shields. Note in my vid of my recent clear (not the two above, the one before that), that I make sure I get all three ships in front of me before trying to make another pass. This minimises the time three sets of hardpoints are facing me. If you have crimes on and YOU interdict the TARGET (rather than dropping in on missoin instance) you can get police help. But in the mission target waypoint, police signals are jammed.

Totally agree. I always drop into the Mission Signal and it turns into a slog. I don't have any problem eliminating this wing, but it takes so long and the payout is almost the same as the standard pirate assassination missions (which can be crushed in about 30 seconds), that I stopped accepting these. Just not worth the trouble.

 

[Krash]

You're still taking about the old ones where the mark is a Corvette, right? Because the new ones, it is definitely not optimal to leave an fdl with 5 hardpoints firing at you while you take out the two vultures which have phasing (and therefore a damage DEbuff). The fdl has more hardpoints than both vultures put together, and while 4 large (both vultures together) is better than 4 medium and a huge (the FDL), as mentioned, the vulture have fairly weak lasers, while the FDL has more effective weapons. On top of that, the shields on the vultures are prismatic (FDLs are A rated) while the FDL has size 4 cells which are ineffective even if you don't have feedback, the vulture still seem to take just as long to beat down.

I 'always' take out the FDL first. Not least of all because if you DO get overwhelmed (not likely on a vette I admit, but as mentioned, I do these in a medium) at least I've already killed the mark (probably). Naturally the kill order on such closely matched ships for effective health is never going to be a huge decider (especially if you use a big ship), but for the encounter I'm talking about, I'd definitely suggest people take out the mark first.

You must take out the FDL first, he seems less likely to run that way (besides the reasons you mentioned). These wing missions were much more interesting when we didn't know what the boss would be flying: Covette, cutter or conda. This new FDL flavour is such a step backward it makes me wonder what were they thinking.

 

[DDastardly00]

Threat level 6 instances are the hardest, in a fully engineered Vette it can sometimes still be very hard. I usually go right after the FDL and ignore the OP vulture wing ships, which usually works, though sometimes the Vultures get through my shields with their OP rails and make the fight very interesting. Last week I literally won by the skin of my teeth.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

How do you wing up with people? This game doesn't make it easy. I've been asking this for ages.

Select someone from your Comm panel and choose "Invite to Wing". If they're already in a wing, they won't get the invite, and I don't recall if there's a message or not to tell you this. Otherwise, ask someone to invite you and accept the invitation. Bare in mind, Wings are only short-term associations, and will dissolve very shortly after logging out/disconnecting. Squadrons are basically player groups, but they're not wings.

 

[Nivell]

I am wondering why nobody did mention reverb-torps for soloing wing missions ...

In the past you could simply switch off the shields of the main-target, paired with anti-hull weapons and it was a fast kill - ignoring escorts

Is this still working?

 

[rekurzion]

Easy

Hull ram target till just before 50% or so. They wont engage. Then take out drives with seekers. Then you can attack him at your leisure. Lure wing away, turn back and make strafing runs on target.

the secret formula - shields, engines, then powerplant. although i've replaced your hull ram with two high cap overload packhounds.

two small overcharged hardpoints of nearly any variety are surprisingly deadly to medium and large ship modules when they are floating helplessly in space. cannons are my fave

 

[Schmack]

the secret formula - shields, engines, then powerplant. although i've replaced your hull ram with two high cap overload packhounds.

two small overcharged hardpoints of nearly any variety are surprisingly deadly to medium and large ship modules when they are floating helplessly in space. cannons are my fave

All that picking apart of the target gives the wing too much time to engage. Sometimes I just engage target after dropping shields via a ram or two (or three) and just tank the hornet swarm until the target pops, then I low wake.

 

[RagingxPenguin]

Unless you intentionally put yourself at a disadvantage they are pretty boring.

Even then the only reason it gets hard is because there's so many shooting you.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

I finally got round to trying one of these in my multipurpose Clipper they are doable, even without a proper combat build (I'm not endorsing this as a sensible way to start doing these though).

As others have said, the target has plenty of engineering on show, but for me this really should be standard across NPCs anyway. I feel like probably only found this hard because I'm used to stripping the hull off an NPC Corvette in a few seconds.